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The Saratoga Town Council met at 6 p.m. on Oct. 2 at the Saratoga Town Hall. Council member Steve Wilcoxson was not present. The agenda and minutes from Sept.18 were approved as were financials in the amount of $180,226.46. Candidate Withdrawal Mayor Ed Glode read an election withdrawal letter from Kim Hytrek who decided, for personal reasons, to withdraw from the general election as town council candidate. Correspondence from the Local Government Liability Pool board asked the town to put...
It’s hard to advocate for a tax. Much less two. However, we at the Saratoga Sun feel that both the One Percent Sales and Use Tax (also known as the 5th Penny Tax) and the Two Percent Lodging Tax should overwhelmingly be passed once again. Fifth Penny It is not often a state with a small population has an opportunity to fund infrastructure improvement or vital services with a good portion of out-of-state monies. Roughly a third of the One Percent Sales and Use Tax is paid by visitors to Carbon County. Honestly, this sales tax goes largely u...
The Saratoga Town Council met at 6 p.m. on Sept. 18 at the Saratoga Town Hall. Council member Jenny Lou Garland was not in attendance, but the rest of the council was at the meeting. It was business as usual as the agenda and minutes from the Sept. 4 council meeting were approved, along with the financials totaling $108,043.00. Mayor Ed Glode read the correspondence and the reason Garland was not present became apparent. Resignation “I have a letter here which I am disappointed in and I am n...
During their regularly scheduled meeting at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13, the Riverside Town Council heard from Helen Weiland, their representative on South Central Wyoming Emergency Medical Services (SCWEMS), about upcoming changes for the service area including the organization signing a contract with Classic Air Medical. The council also heard from Marilyn Godfrey, the Riverside representative on the Carbon County Visitors Council (CCVC), and Leslie Jefferson, CCVC Executive Director....
The Hanna Town Council met at 6 p.m. on Sept. 11 at the Hanna Town Hall. Traci Fowler, council member, was absent. After saying the pledge of allegiance, Tony Poulos asked for a two minute silence for the victims of 9/11. Once the commemorative silence was over, it was business as usual. The agenda and minutes from the Aug. 14 meeting were quickly approved. The Carbon County Council of Governments is coming to Hanna on Sept. 19. Dinner is served at these meetings and Lois Buchanan was selected...
Hangar leases and landing fees were the top topics of discussion during the regularly scheduled meeting of the Saratoga Airport Board at 1 p.m. on Sept. 12 at the Saratoga Town Hall and was attended by multiple hangar owners. The perpetual issue of hangar leases has been one discussed over several years and by multiple incarnations of the board. It was noted by town council member Richard Raymer, who represents the town on the airport board, at the Aug. 7 town council meeting that current fixed...
The Corbett Medical Foundation (Foundation), named for former Valley doctor Ray A. Corbett, was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in September of 1993 and set their bylaws in January of 1994. The Foundation was started to remove both fund raising and dispersement burdens from the governing body of the Town of Saratoga. Mission Statement Generally stated, the mission statement of the Foundation was set to respond to the critical medical needs of the Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) area....
The September meeting of the Encampment Town Council at 7 p.m. on Sept. 13 at the Encampment Town Hall was relatively short, a total of 40 minutes, with the exception of the executive session entered into near the end of the meeting. During the regularly scheduled meeting, members of the town council approved a new representative on the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District (UPRSWDD), made a decision concerning Encampment’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) account and d...
Ordinance 847, written to regulate mobile home parks within Saratoga, came back before the Saratoga Planning Commission during their regularly scheduled meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 11 at the Saratoga Town Hall. The ordinance, which rewrites several sections of Title 18, came back to the planning commission following the Saratoga Town Council meeting on Sept. 4 (Front page, Sept. 12, 2018 Saratoga Sun, “Dirt, doctor discussed”). The commission also discussed making changes to 15.04.100 of the m...
The September meeting of the Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board (CCIJPB) was a somber one, taking place just a week after the untimely passing of JPB Chairman Donnie Price. Beginning shortly after 6 p.m. on Sept. 12 at the Saratoga Town Hall, vice-chairman Craig Kopasz lead the meeting after saying a few words about Price. “First off, I want to say something about Donnie. It was just a horrible accident and, honestly, it’s just awful. I know a lot of people here were close with him and he...
When a business has burned through nearly half a million dollars and is still not on track, it is normally time to rethink that particular business model. This is the case the with the Platte Valley Medical Clinic (Clinic). Since August 2017 the Clinic has gone through $499,228 in subsidies and more has been requested. Most of those costs are normal business costs for a clinic. A $5,000 moving allowance and a $10,000 signing bonus are normal in recruiting a new doctor. Some costs do not make...
The Saratoga Town Council met at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at the Saratoga Town Hall and was short one council member, Richard Raymer, who was away at the scene of an accident on Highway 130. The agenda, minutes and financials were approved in the early moments of the meeting. The bills came to a total of $153,747.12. Craig Kopasz, Engineering Associates, came before the council to explain his letter to the town. He said the town of Hanna had some projects going and would like to get 1,000 unit yards of...
Many interesting things happened during the 2018 primary elections, among them were a handful of municipal races that saw people running as write-in candidates. According to Wyoming Statute 22-23-307, a write-in candidate in the primary election needs a minimum of three votes to be able to advance to the general election. In the case of multiple candidates, the one who receives the most write-in votes advances to the general election. Following the June 1 filing deadline for candidates, two...
The Saratoga Town Council met at 6 p.m. on Aug. 21 at the Saratoga Town Hall with all the council attending. It was business as usual with the approval of the minutes for the meeting on Aug. 7 and agenda. The financials were approved in the sum of $112,413.74. Saratoga Mayor Ed Glode went over correspondence from Platte Valley Community Center (PVCC) and the Carbon County Visitors Council. The annual PVCC fundraiser on Sept. 8 and is named Bon Voyage, being themed on travel, many of auctions...
Cell phone coverage, depending on the person asked, is spotty at best in the Platte Valley. Saratoga, Encampment and Riverside are “Union Wireless Country” as they are the predominant provider in the area. On the horizon is the possibility of coverage for other, and more nationally known, providers such as T-Mobile. The horizon that the towers are proposed to be constructed on, however, is not to everyone’s liking. Skyway Towers is a Florida-based communications tower construction company and i...
Concerns over a proposed tower to be constructed by Skyway Towers, LLC were expressed during the Encampment Town Council meeting on Aug. 9 at the Encampment Town Hall. The communication tower is projected to stand approximately 310 feet tall which will require Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lighting on the tower. Following a public notice in the Saratoga Sun on July 18, Cindy Hamilton, Encampment Town Council member, sent a request as a private citizen for an environmental review to be...
Following a tense exchange of words between David and Tasha Worthington and council member Richard Raymer during the Aug. 7 Saratoga Town Council meeting, it was expected that the ongoing issues of hangar leases would top discussions at the Saratoga Airport Board on Aug. 8. When the board met at 1 p.m. at the Saratoga Town Hall the next day, however, discussion of the hangar leases and definitions was limited—with the only mention of the leases being about correspondence received from hangar o...
The Carbon County Council of Governments (CCCOG) had a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the Platte Valley Community Center in Saratoga. The purpose of the special meeting was to discuss the 6th Penny Tax, also known as the Specific Purpose Excise Tax. This is not to be confused with 5th Penny Tax that is officially known as the One Percent Sales and Use Tax coming up for renewal on the Nov. 6 ballot. The 5th Penny Tax funds services for all Carbon County communities. Based on a...
By Joshua Wood Employees of Saratoga Care Center, Platte Valley Medical Clinic, residents of Saratoga and even Dr. Bryan Kaiser himself were in attendance at a packed Saratoga Town Council meeting on the night of Tuesday, Aug. 7 at the Saratoga Town Hall. With the fate of Kaiser’s lease with the Town of Saratoga in question and with repeated executive sessions over the last few months, it was suspected that the council would announce the fate of Kaiser’s future with Platte Valley Medical Cli...
On Aug. 7 it was announced that Health Management Services (HMS), LLC. would be taking over management of the Platte Valley Medical Clinic. This came on the heels of the announcement that the Town of Saratoga would neither renew nor renegotiate their lease with Dr. Bryan Kaiser, who took over as provider following the departure of Dr. Dean Bartholomew. HMS, a company based in Billings, MT., has managed the Saratoga Care Center for three years following a crisis that threatened to close the...
The Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board heard from Element Engineering, the company hired to oversee the lagoon project, and from Forsgren Associates at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 8. Nick Marcotte of Element Engineering was in attendance to give a synopsis and explain what all had been done during the span of the project. This included burying air piping that had previously been above ground, installing new valves, flow meters and chemical injection systems to maintain the lagoon. While...
“This is huge for Saratoga. This is the kind of bandwidth that larger communities dream about. This is going to far exceed what we find in Casper or Cheyenne,” Merrit Engebretsen, account executive for Union Telephone, summed up Wednesday evening’s broadband presentation by Union telephone. Engebretsen added, “I live in Casper and right now I get about 40 megs—which I feel that is pretty good. Here we are talking about being able to offer a gigabit speed to a resident. Then if we need to get in...
Rumors have swirled around the Valley for several weeks about Dr. Bryan Kaiser’s future with Platte Valley Medical Clinic. The speculation picked up following the Saratoga Town Council meeting on July 17 when Karl Rude, President of Health Management Services, LLC. (HMS), entered executive session with council members and the mayor. This executive session was the second time in as many months that a member of HMS spoke with the council, the first being when Saratoga Care Center administrator M...
Determining what extraterritorial jurisdiction a municipality has outside of town limits was the primary catalyst for a workshop held on July 31 between the Saratoga Town Council, Saratoga Planning Commission and Carbon County Planning Director Sid Fox. As was reported previously in the July 18 edition of the Saratoga Sun (page 9, “Looking to the future”), the workshop was organized following Fox’s appearance before the planning commission to explain the current issues facing the “buff...
Candidates for District 47 Representative, District 11 Senator and Saratoga Town Council participated in the first of two candidate forums hosted by the Valley Service Organization (VSO) on July 23. Saratoga residents in attendance were scattered through the Great Hall of the Platte Valley Community Center. The event was live-streamed by Saratoga Sun via social media. VSO member Sue Jones, who moderated the first half of the forum, invited the state candidates up to the front of the room to...